Grandma Sayo and Her Deli

Grandma Sayo and Her Deli

Produced by Shizuoka Broadcasting System, 2011

Broadcast Schedule (UTC) Mar. 18 (Sun.) 1:10
5:10
9:10
13:10
17:10
22:10

Nukuri Station is a small, unmanned railway station that is deep in the mountains of central Japan. Today, steam locomotives on the historic Oigawa Main Line pass by the station without stopping, but every day, the building still bustles with activity, as a group of elderly women works hard inside preparing meals.

In this touching story, you'll meet Grandma Sayo, a woman with a hard earned but spirited smile, who is indispensable at the little deli in the old station. She not only cooks and sells food, but also delivers homemade meals and heartwarming smiles to other seniors in the local community, helping them savor the pleasures of each day.

Director's Voice

Tomoya Abe
Producer
Shizuoka Broadcasting System

I feel deeply honored that this program will be seen by many people around the world. To produce it, I visited the location whenever I had time and filmed for several years. I used just a small camera, with no microphone or lighting equipment.

The setting is Nukuri Station on the Oigawa Railway, which runs through a mountainous district. It's an unmanned wooden station that was built in the late 1920s. At the start, I was just filming the appearance of the station as news material. As I worked, a woman with a smiling face chatted to me; it was Sayo Morota, who would later become the heroine of the program.

Sayo was cooking dishes every day at the station building, selling them to tourist facilities, and also visiting homes of elderly people living on their own to sell dishes she kept in reserve at low prices. The number of residents in the Nukuri district is falling year by year, and quite a lot of the families consist only of elderly members; in a way, it's a community struggling for survival. I discovered that the residents were living cheek by jowl with the problems of growing old and loneliness, and an increasing number of them were finding it difficult even to prepare meals.

Sayo said to me, "We don't have a big supermarket here and many of the old people have problems with their legs. Their happy smiles are the source of my energy". After that, encouraged by the smiles of Sayo and many other people, I started making frequent visits to the village with the unmanned station. Initially, some of the elderly didn't easily open up their heart to Sayo, but as she repeatedly visited their homes, even on rainy or windy days, they gradually came out of their shells.

Through my filming, I experienced at first hand the way the warm spirit of Sayo, who delivered not only the dishes but also the "courage to live", was spreading around the community. Now I have finished producing the program, I believe that it presents a microcosm of Japan, in that it shows people's hearts crying out for something, which is a common feature in any town or village. I hope to continue weaving heartwarming stories that will remind viewers, in an affectionate manner, of the bonds between people, the links between people's hearts.

Awards
Grand Prix of TV Programs in the 7th Japan Broadcast Culture
NAB Awards 2011 Meritorious Award in Cultual Program Div.
Encouragement Prize in the Age of Regionalism Video Festival 2011

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This video has no dropped frames so has been marked as CFR by removing the timecodes. It will play on the PS3.

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part 1 of 3: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qz648fik0ab1km5

part 2 of 3: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?a97e8mb663uyv5a

part 3 of 3: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1kaaismj82d4im0